The crystallization behavior of biodegradable poly(butylene succinate) in the presence of organically modified clay with a wide range of loadings

The crystallization behavior of poly(butylene succinate)(PBS) nanocomposites with a wide range of contents of clays was revealed. It was of interest to find that the crystallization rate of PBS was accelerated obviously at relatively low contents of clays; while a retarded crystallization kinetics and a decreased crystallinity of PBS were found in the nanocomposites with higher clay contents. Two interplaying effects existed in the nanocomposites, i.e., a suppression effect of clays on nucleation and a templating effect of clays on crystal growth, were clarified to contribute to this intriguing crystallization behavior.     

Formation of Poly（L-lactide） Mesophase and Its Chain Mobility Dependent Kinetics

In the present work, the PLLA mesophase formation and its kinetics at the advent of a chain mobility accelerator （polyethylene glycol （PEG）） are investigated by wide angle X-ray diffraction （WAXD） and time-resolved Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy （FTIR）. It is interestingly found that the presence of PEG could accelerate the formation of PLLA mesophase notably due to the enhanced chain mobility, giving rise to a substantially reduced half time （t0.5） of PLLA mesophase formation from 129 min to 8 min. The Avrami exponents （n） for the kinetics of mesophase formation are -0.5 for neat PLLA and 1 for PLLA/PEG, respectively, indicating that 1D-rod growth through heterogeneous nucleation occurs during formation of PLLA mesophase. Tensile testing demonstrates that PLLA mesophase could increase the tensile strength and modulus but decrease the elongation at break.